Jakarta – Eight people were killed, and 12 others wounded in armed attacks on a Christian neighbourhood and a passenger boat in the strife-torn eastern Indonesian city of Ambon yesterday.

Five men were killed in an early morning attack on the Wisma Gonzalo neighbourhood in Ambon by men clad in black and carrying standard army-issue firearms, the state Antara news agency said. Five other people were injured in the pre-dawn attack. Later in the day, snipers shot at two boats crossing Ambon bay, killing three people and wounding seven, including a soldier escorting the boat.

Mr J. Wattimuri, the director of the Bakti Rahayu hospital in Ambon, told AFP that one of the bodies from the Gonzalo area had been brought to the hospital with slash wounds and a bullet through the chest.

He said that according to people who brought the victim to the hospital, two other people were also killed in the early morning violence. Antara said the bodies of these two men were found hours later near one of the four houses burned in the attack.